Gael Monfils recovered from a tough first set to overcome Thomaz Bellucci 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-4 in round one of the Erste Bank Open on Tuesday. The Frenchman once again covered all ends of the spectrum–awful errors, bizarre antics, and amazing winners–before prevailing in two hours and 28 minutes.
Monfils pretends to stop playing, fakes Bellucci into giving him what should been an easy winner, but botches the ensuing backhand:
[tweet https://twitter.com/BloodDimon/status/656528045612879872]
Monfils hits jumping forehand winner:
https://vine.co/v/e9EuPE6YVDO
[polldaddy poll=9132783]
? nieminen got lucky loser almagro now that’s unlucky and he barely lost
While Rosol was arguing with the chair umpire…
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CSBf_3IUwAAQ6jn.jpg
Gael was toying with Lucas. Rosol was all psyched up but he couldn’t compete when Monfils got serious.
Final score
Monfils def Rosol 67 63 63
That was an all time classic from Monfils. He ran through his whole repetoire of tricks and had the rowdy crowd on their feet and eating out of his hand.
He’s off the wall, or as the commie said ‘as mad as a bag of snakes’, but in the mood he was in tonight utterly irresistible.
how was he against Rosol?
Rosol was playing well until he got rattled by the Monfils antics and the crowd rooting against him and started complaing to the umpire. The more surly Rosol became the more le Monf goaded him until he cracked. Monf was alternately pulling off his trademark shots or making stupid errors. He broke Rosol in the first game of the decider but right to the bitter end he could just as easily have lost.
Pity Baggy is in the Stockholm SF instead of Vienna. A SF with him and Monf would have been good entertainment.
awesome